I have to be honest with you I don't remember the Jascul thread. This idea of crossing certain bridges is a recent development in my teaching view.
bridge 1: Spaz
bridge 2: ego
bridge 3: strength
bridge 4: not dealing with strength
bridge 5: linear thinking
bridge 6: definitive moves

BTW this is me talking out my ass. I'm making these bridge names as I'm typing this without too much thought in why I have come to these conclusions. It was just to help you understand my mindset.

If I may share an anecdote; I showed up to a seminar I was supposed to put on as a SAMBO instructor. I watched everybody roll and my determination what I would show everybody. I sat everybody down and told them I would show them the crossbody armbar. You should have seen everybody's faces, I had 1 purple belt, a few blues, lots of whites and mixture of Japanese Ju Jitsu and Judoka blackbelts. I told them that I knew they wanted to learn leg locks but I think they would get more from the armbar. I then told them I would refund their money if they thought they didn't get anything from the session.

After 4 drills, breakdowns and critiques I invited each of them to come out on the floor and roll. The purple belt, 1 judoka and two blue belts took me up on the offer. I armbarred each of them within 4 minutes. I ended the session by telling them that it's neat to learn all these fun unique maneuvers but by doing it they neglect their basics. It's usually around blue belt when that happens.

I don't know what to tell you why this happens. My theory is that by blue belt a person has developed the ability to tap people without too great of an effort so they want to take off with it and they learning curve shoots up. They learn all these moves without really knowing why they work, I mean truly knowing why. Even today I learn different things about leverage and maneuvers of the basics and to me that's fascinating. Sure I can pull off flying toe holds, jumping kimura's, D'arce, Brabos, Weaving Heel Hooks, but it normally comes down to understanding the basics.

*edit:

The reason why I shared this anecdote is for you to understand that things you may dismiss today as not necessary you may find useful tomorrow.

Thanks, Omega. That was interesting, made sense, and I agree. As a joking digression, how can I register online to receive a rank in your bridge level program (TM)!? Haha, you should just do a site up with those on there and sell subs as to the secrets of getting over the bridge! The Scientology of Grappling.

I feel I've already gone through that "find something really cool to show/beat training partners" at late white, early blue. Then Rok and I sat down and went "This is stupid, our basics are not near where they need to be, we have all these flashy moves that we can't do right, and we're also missing the 'magic' in the basics" and we rebuilt a lot of the things we skipped paying attention to by focusing on the why of moves to apply as concepts, as well as grips etc. It really made me face palm in reflection, we would have been so much further ahead if we hadn't gone through that phase, but thankfully it was pretty quick before paradigm shift.

From there we basically paid a lot more attention, asked a lot more questions, tried small variations on our basics to understand them more and questioned this stuff with the higher belts to verify our thoughts, drilled, applied, and reworked to understand. That's something we've been doing for the last 2 years, and it's really helped—and something I've found the most fun with. We've also been able to pass that knowledge down as well to the lower belts coming up, and I think it's helped as we use basics well when we roll with them or explain the power of basics/high percentage techniques (Disclaimer: always room for improvement, but they're much better than they were before--mastery takes a lifetime etc).

And for me, that was a lightbulb moment and really shone a light on that maxim you hear grappling is a game of inches/centimeters, and this gets smaller as you get higher up, Black belts are fighting over this small space to make or restrict it and it's just awesome to know there's always this room for improvement and growth. I love how there's this depth to technique even the most basic of things, and that means I can keep doing it forever without hopefully getting bored at all :3.

That's really no excuse. The description for YMAS states "Take the gloves off and grammatically beat on each other and dead horses", also there are stickies and of course most people do lurk before posting.

Yeah, that's true; just the aim was to explain not excuse. Mainly battlefields and I were talking about Bullshido at class and said how fun and informative it can be, and Rok has usually posted on other forums only, so he said he would join up and came and watched, read some of the really funny videos, threads and then joined up, and I think this was one of his first posts in this thread.

Thanks, Omega. That was interesting, made sense, and I agree. As a joking digression, how can I register online to receive a rank in your bridge level program (TM)!? Haha, you should just do a site up with those on there and sell subs as to the secrets of getting over the bridge! The Scientology of Grappling.

I feel I've already gone through that "find something really cool to show/beat training partners" at late white, early blue. Then Rok and I sat down and went "This is stupid, our basics are not near where they need to be, we have all these flashy moves that we can't do right, and we're also missing the 'magic' in the basics" and we rebuilt a lot of the things we skipped paying attention to by focusing on the why of moves to apply as concepts, as well as grips etc. It really made me face palm in reflection, we would have been so much further ahead if we hadn't gone through that phase, but thankfully it was pretty quick before paradigm shift.

From there we basically paid a lot more attention, asked a lot more questions, tried small variations on our basics to understand them more and questioned this stuff with the higher belts to verify our thoughts, drilled, applied, and reworked to understand. That's something we've been doing for the last 2 years, and it's really helped—and something I've found the most fun with. We've also been able to pass that knowledge down as well to the lower belts coming up, and I think it's helped as we use basics well when we roll with them or explain the power of basics/high percentage techniques (Disclaimer: always room for improvement, but they're much better than they were before--mastery takes a lifetime etc).

And for me, that was a lightbulb moment and really shone a light on that maxim you hear grappling is a game of inches/centimeters, and this gets smaller as you get higher up, Black belts are fighting over this small space to make or restrict it and it's just awesome to know there's always this room for improvement and growth. I love how there's this depth to technique even the most basic of things, and that means I can keep doing it forever without hopefully getting bored at all :3.

Thanks, Omega. That was interesting, made sense, and I agree. As a joking digression, how can I register online to receive a rank in your bridge level program (TM)!? Haha, you should just do a site up with those on there and sell subs as to the secrets of getting over the bridge! The Scientology of Grappling.

This is an amazing idea. And to cross each of the bridges and move to the next level Omega will "audit" each of the initiates. With his foot.

I feel I've already gone through that "find something really cool to show/beat training partners" at late white, early blue. Then Rok and I sat down and went "This is stupid, our basics are not near where they need to be, we have all these flashy moves that we can't do right, and we're also missing the 'magic' in the basics" and we rebuilt a lot of the things we skipped paying attention to by focusing on the why of moves to apply as concepts, as well as grips etc. It really made me face palm in reflection, we would have been so much further ahead if we hadn't gone through that phase, but thankfully it was pretty quick before paradigm shift.

From there we basically paid a lot more attention, asked a lot more questions, tried small variations on our basics to understand them more and questioned this stuff with the higher belts to verify our thoughts, drilled, applied, and reworked to understand. That's something we've been doing for the last 2 years, and it's really helped—and something I've found the most fun with. We've also been able to pass that knowledge down as well to the lower belts coming up, and I think it's helped as we use basics well when we roll with them or explain the power of basics/high percentage techniques (Disclaimer: always room for improvement, but they're much better than they were before--mastery takes a lifetime etc).

And for me, that was a lightbulb moment and really shone a light on that maxim you hear grappling is a game of inches/centimeters, and this gets smaller as you get higher up, Black belts are fighting over this small space to make or restrict it and it's just awesome to know there's always this room for improvement and growth. I love how there's this depth to technique even the most basic of things, and that means I can keep doing it forever without hopefully getting bored at all :3.

That's one of the best descriptions of those *ping* epiphany moments I've ever heard. Some people get stuck in a phase and never move past it, or decide it's too hard and just quit.

I'm starting in a new style after a long lay-off, so will be going through all those phases all over again as I progress through it. Think I'll keep this thread tucked away for a bit of inspiration and a kick up the arse when it's needed the most.

One of the best things my instructors ever did was show me what various warmups (shrimping, reverse shrimp, mat pulls, tumbling) were for, and how they directly benefited my Judo. They might still suck to do, but I now know they are also improving both my fitness and my Judo. Good stuff.

One of the best things my instructors ever did was show me what various warmups (shrimping, reverse shrimp, mat pulls, tumbling) were for, and how they directly benefited my Judo. They might still suck to do, but I now know they are also improving both my fitness and my Judo. Good stuff.